Photo Friday: Keeping Historic Vermont Avenue Beautiful, Washington, DC USA

This weeks’s photograph is (of course) taken in Washington, DC of local residents keeping one of the most historic streets in the United States beautiful.

The photos were published in local DC blog Prince of Petworth (@PopVille), which ignited the curiosity of someone in neighboring Bloomingdale. It turns out that creating a gardening party requires a little bit of work:

…We’ve been organized for more than a decade by some wonderfully committed neighbors. The gardens span a couple different single member ANC districts and both the U Street Neighborhood Assn and the Westminster Neighborhood Assn.
The impressive execution of the annual Vt Ave Garden (work!) Party is largely sweat equity, with a fair amount of prior planning to get sponsorships from neighbor businesses for breakfast, lunch, water, flowers, mulch, cones, tools, and even some raffle prizes for volunteers. The most important part is maintaining all the great work we do as a group each spring through watering, weeding, pruning, trash pick-up, and also maintenance of cut-through paths (that we’ve laid in brick ourselves).
All very rewarding and fun bonding for the neighborhood!

Why historic?

This happened on this street in 1941:

This happened on this street in 1968:

(Image -> Martin Luther King, Jr, speaking at Vermont Avenue Baptist Church, February 2, 1968)

This happened on this street in 1995:

Several groups representing gay men and lesbians, including Gay Men and Lesbians Opposing Violence and the DC Coalition of Black Lesbians, Gay Men and Bisexuals, demonstrated outside the headquarters at 1900 Vermont Ave. NW with chants and speeches to protest the department’s treatment of Tyrone (Tyra) Michael Hunter, 24, who was fatally injured….

…igniting the modern transgender person rights movement in our nation’s capital.:

On December 11, 1998, a jury awarded Hunter’s mother, Margie, $2.9 million after finding the District of Columbia, through its employees in the D.C. Fire Department and doctors at D.C. General, liable under the D.C. Human Rights Act and for negligence and medical malpractice for causing Tyra’s death.

This happened on this street in 2010:

I wanted to post this here to encourage others to think about the places they inhabit.

Sometimes the places where the world gets changed benefit from a little attention so they can stay just as beautiful :).